I was interviewed for the article. I couldn’t connect with a phone call as the author had another deadline, so I offered to answer any questions I could over email. Unfortunately, my story didn’t make the cut. I’m disappointed, but at the same time I realize that not everyone can be included. You win some, you lose some. I’ll get it next time. (Am I missing any other cliches here?)

Since I put significant time and thought into my responses, I’m sharing it here. It’s not MarketWatch, but I have green, white, and black in my logo, so it will have to be good enough.

First the reporter wanted some basic profile information. (I provided a full name if she wanted it. Sometimes they need that.) Other than that, the questions and answers are exactly as outlined here (I’m don’t want to put so much text into a quote box as it would be difficult to read):

It depends on expenses which can vary greatly depending on where you live or life choices you make such as to have kids or not. If I needed to give a number, I would say $2 million. That’s based on $2 million being reasonably able to provide $80,000 a year using the famous “rule of 4%.”

Question 2:

Why do you think that’s enough?

Answer 2:

It’s not enough for everyone, but I think it’s enough for most people in most cases.

Question 3:

Why do you think there’s a spectrum of FIRE, such as “fatFIRE vs leanFIRE”?

Answer 3:

I don’t know if it’s a spectrum. It’s usually only those two different types.

The leanFIRE people seem to want to get to FIRE earlier. There are tax benefits and health care subsidies for those who keep their income low(leanFIRE). The fatFIRE crowd seems to have more high-income earners who could be used to living off a 6-figure income. I think you find more doctors and lawyers in the fatFIRE group.

Question 4:

What advice do you have for people looking to accomplish FIRE in the same way as you?

Answer 4:

Save money and invest it… the earlier the better as it will give time for compound interest to work for you. For example, if you have a portfolio of $1 million invested in stocks and the market goes up 10%, you’ve made $100,000 doing nothing.

For us, personally, my wife is nearing 20 years of active duty service where she’ll get a pension. Because of that, we are going to be in the fatFIRE camp with the rest of our savings and investments. It’s a bit of a unique situation and I understand others can’t do it the same way.

And that was the end of my answers. The author thanked me for the responses and I let her know I was happy to do any follow-ups. I never heard from her again.

Two weeks after the responses, I saw some people tweeting about the article that seemed to be a result of the interview. Naturally, I was curious to see if I was included, but I was also curious what other people had to say about the topic.

It seems that the FIRE is surprisingly standard. It’s so standard that I essentially covered almost everything in the article in about 17 sentences. Let’s dig into the MarketWatch article and see what new things we can learn. (This time I will use quotes.)

Author:

“One side, known as Fat FIRE, believes retirees should have enough saved so they have a $75,000 annual budget in retirement, the other side, Lean FIRE, maintains that a $40,000 a year budget will do.”

I suppose it really is just the two different types and not really a spectrum.

[Justin at Root of Good] said one rule of thumb people could use is multiplying your expenses by 25.

This is the mathematical inverse of the 4% rule.

Jillian Johnsrud from Montana Money Adventure, 32, took a frugal approach to her financial independence. She and her husband looked at their expenses and cash flow and saw they had enough passive income through a military pension and investments, as well as cash, to cover all their basic needs.

The military pension and investments sounds exactly like our plan as I wrote in the last paragraph. Again, I don’t know Jillian’s story, but when I get some time I’ll have to look on her site some more or maybe try to talk to her at Fincon. I thought my wife getting her pension at 43 was early due to the 20 years of service that is necessary. (My wife joined right after pharmacy school.) I imagine Jillian has a unique situation within a unique situation. I’m guessing that there aren’t many 32 year olds retiring with a military pension, unless it’s due to a disability. That’s something that I don’t want to think about or wish on anyone.

Author:

Financial independence ultimately relies on a very personal strategy — what people want in their lives, how much they need to fund those goals and a dedication to save enough to do so. …everyone is coming at early retirement from different points in their lives — some are younger with more years to accrue returns and interest on their assets, others might be living in very economical cities (not expensive hubs like New York City and Los Angeles)…

This seems to come very close to my first answer where I mentioned where you live and life choices you make (such as choosing to have kids or not). Quite a few of the commenters mentioned that some of the profiled people don’t have kids which makes their journey easier. Justin and Jillian have multiple children and were able to pull it off.

Author:

J, the personal finance blogger behind Millennial Boss and the podcast FIRE Drill, said she believes $2 million is enough, and she and her husband have incomes high enough to reach that goal. Using the so-called 4% rule, where you withdraw that much of your assets every year to live on, would be more than enough for the average person, especially if they pay off their home like they plan to do.

This happens to be the exact number, $2 million based on the 4% rule that I mentioned. Am I psychic? Hardly. The $2 million number based on the 4% rule goes back a long time. For instance, I had been reading 2million’s Personal Finance Blog since 2006. You can literally follow 13 years of nearly monthly net worth updates in his archives as it goes from $184,000 to $1.8M.

At first when I read the Marketwatch article, I was frustrated. Why didn’t any of my answers make it? Then as thought more about it, it’s because there really aren’t a lot of ingredients in the secret sauce of FIRE.

Perhaps more importantly, the author focused on people in their 30s (though Millennnial Boss is in her 20s from the website). Maybe because I’m an ancient 42, I missed the cut.

I also noticed that while leanFire and fatFire were mentioned, it doesn’t seem like fatFire was represented among the bloggers. Justin and Jillian are forward about their frugal lifestyles. I think Tanja is as well, but with some of the financial numbers a secret I can only make an educated guess that she’s leanFire as well. J from Millennial Boss writes of paying off $100,000 of debt and being in her 20s, so I can’t imagine she currently has the millions to be fatFire. (Maybe there was a big lottery win that I missed.)

I’ve seen a lot of chatter in the FIRE community that “you can’t frugal your way to FIRE.” Yet, when you look at the people who are FIRE, it seems that frugality is a very noticeable trait.

On the other hand, it’s extraordinarily difficult to get to fatFire in your 30s. You almost certainly need a combination of a very high paying job (such as doctor or lawyer) and a very frugal background. Or you could be extraordinarily talented like a professional athlete or famous entertainer. It’s typically going to be a very unlikely situation that few readers could use as a blueprint.

Just like snowflakes and fingerprints everyone has their own unique financial journey. While no two are exactly alike, it seems to me that there’s are many common practices and plans.

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Comments

Don’t be frustrated, its clear that the author was steering the article to these unique bloggers that have an extraordinary nest egg at strangely young ages. The article is also quite clearly written for millennial eyeballs. So by picking bloggers that are millennial age, they can more effectively relate to the article. I think what you’ve accomplished is remarkable and I look forward to reading your future articles. In my eyes, its much easier to relate to someone that has been through the trenches and worked their way to Fire than someone that appears to have had a big break at some point in their journey. Cutting expenses is a finite process, you can only become so frugal before theres nothing left to save. So these bloggers could very well have inherited money, have incredibly high income or live in areas where the cost of living is very low. Either way, you’re doing awesome, and I can’t wait to follow in your footsteps in 10-15 years.

Sorry you didn’t make it into the article. It’s no big deal.
I see your points. Most of your answers are similar to other bloggers’ answers. I’d say just about the same thing.
Although, I thought fatFIRE was > $100,000/year.
Is there any blogger who already retired and is doing the fatFIRE thing?
Physician on FIRE is still working.
Most bloggers are closer to the leanFIRE side.

I think John from ESI Money and Jim Wang from WalletHacks might qualify as fatFIRE. I think Wealthy Accountant or White Coat Investor too, but I don’t know them very well. I’m going to avoid the dicey question of defining “retired” especially for PF bloggers who typically still make money from their blog or related side gigs.

I would have liked to see a Physician on FIRE (or myself of course) at least representing a roadmap to fatFIRE.

The fat and lean numbers seem oddly specific to me. I like your word descriptions much better. Lean is lowering expenses to retire as soon as possible. Fat is earning and saving as much as possible to retire with a more lavish life style. Realistically, you need to to some of both. To the extent that there is a dichotomy, perhaps it’s because blogs that focus on both don’t get the same attention as blogs that focus on one or the other.

I can see fatFIRE being at 75K, but I’m not sure if there’s a specific number definition. I think leanFIRE is a little easier to define because people are trying to manage expenses to stay under certain tax brackets and healthcare income rates.

I have to admit, I’ve thought about how we can stay under a certain income to qualify for college financial aid. With kids age 4 and 5, we’ve got a lot of time to figure that out.

The stuff about lean or fat was a continuation of my quote. The whole passage:

>> Financial independence ultimately relies on a very personal strategy — what people want in their lives, how much they need to fund those goals and a dedication to save enough to do so. “Fat FIRE versus Lean FIRE suggests numerical boundaries,” said Tanja Hester, personal finance blogger behind Our Next Life who is now working on a book called “Work Optional.” Along with having a vision for the future, everyone is coming at early retirement from different points in their lives — some are younger with more years to accrue returns and interest on their assets, others might be living in very economical cities (not expensive hubs like New York City and Los Angeles) and others might have one spouse earning a much higher income to more quickly attain their savings goal. <<

My point is that I don't think those labels are helpful, and it's silly to further segment the community. Also, to answer your question, we're not even a little bit frugal. I hate the labels, but I'm sure others would call us fat FIRE. ;-)

That’s a great point and I didn’t pick it from reading the article itself. I was going to include more of your quote in there, but it was only 8 words and would have doubled the quote size.

I had always thought there were kind of numerical boundaries in the fatFIRE vs. leanFIRE discussion. (I admit that I’m new to these sub-niches. I can’t seem to figure out if they are one word or two as I’ve seen it both ways.) I had thought that leanFIRE was designed to get under tax brackets and/or health care limits and fatFIRE was more of the $75K-100K income that some have suggested. I don’t think the FIRE community needs any further segmenting either, but the toothpaste is out of the tube.

It felt to me that you might be a bit frugal because there was some focus on reducing waste (even if for environmental reasons it can lead to frugality) and the potentially using the retirement time to shop at different stores to get the best price. I may have also presumed it because you’ve written about the sequence of returns a lot and built 8,000 contingency scenarios. Now, I really wonder about those spendthrift days you mention ;-).

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